THERE’S an interesting paper on eider ducks in the current edition of Irish Birds.

THERE’S good news on the bird front; little terns seem to have bred successfully this summer.

NEWBRIDGE House, a fine 18th Century mansion in north County Dublin, was the ancestral home of the Cobbe family, whose ranks included an archbishop and a Lord Lieutenant.

EVERY animal group has its celebrity species.

NICOLAS VANIER is a French adventurer and filmmaker who was born in Senegal.

LYON’S airport is called after one of that city’s most famous sons.

IN 1859 two Irishmen, Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, led the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north.

THE Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland hosted its annual outreach lecture last week.

DORCHA, our normally docile cat, killed two baby wrens this week.